RIP software hackathons. Long live the hardware hackathon

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 10, 2026, 3:16 AM UTC

stackghost wrote: post #22

sublinear wrote: post #9

> We wired a Raspberry Pi... > ...the focus of hackathons has completely shifted away from typing code... > ...iterating on intricacies of implementation with radical refactors has become a trivial task... The irony is unreal. Where's the hardware? Since the advent of SBCs and microcontroller kits, software devs have felt the same way about hardware being trivial. Yet, a hardware engineer still makes a massive differ…

>The irony is unreal. Where's the hardware? It's the rotary phone and the raspberry pi, of course. Don't gatekeep. The fact that microcontrollers are so cheap now means for most (but, sure, not all) applications they're strictly superior in every way compared to e.g. 555 timers and LM386 amplifiers, or whatever. This is because, critically, you can debug and reprogram a micro. To do the equivalent with a 555 timer me…

Post by ryancnelson » Wed, Jun 10, 2026, 3:23 AM UTC

Post by a34729t » Wed, Jun 10, 2026, 3:40 AM UTC

pdntspa wrote: post #26

d1sxeyes wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is participation in your off time mandatory? If so, the problem is not hackathons. If not, why not just… not participate? The folks who do often enjoy working on the problems, networking, etc., so I’m not sure killing them all together is particularly fair to folks who do get a lot out of them.

The lack of participation is often one of those things that management will quietly hold against you.

Post by NDlurker » Wed, Jun 10, 2026, 3:53 AM UTC

NothingAboutAny wrote: post #16

al_borland wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone was bragging to me about their new AI startup a few months ago. I went to look at their website. It was some AI slop. I checked out the code for their form to register interest for the launch… it wasn’t setup at all. It was just a form that went nowhere. They had an idea, told AI to make a site about it, didn’t bother replacing the boilerplate to make it work, hosted it, and then started bragging to their fri…

there's an Ice cream shop in my city that has obviously generated all their signage and menus and everything else, even on their website the photos section has AI generated people smiling and happy next to the sign. I get that it's a small business that has probably saved a couple of G's on design/code but it's all so sloppy and obvious.

Post by kusokurae » Wed, Jun 10, 2026, 4:22 AM UTC

smaudet wrote: post #34

deadbabe wrote: post #24

On the contrary, I think software hackathons could really hit a golden age where we see how far people can push the limits of what we ever thought possible within 24 hours or a weekend through the use of AI. Less “pretty UI with mock data” and more fully working products ready for the consumer market.

I don't think you understand the goal of a hackathon. They aren't (or weren't) VC pitch sessions. You don't run marathons to be usane bolt, you don't go to hackathons to land VC deals. 24 hours of non stop AI usage doesn't sound fun. It sounds hateful and demotivating, you want to discover yourself , and maybe some other people, not what a robot can do.